How to present in English

Too often when we think “presentation” we thing PowerPoint or Keynote, yet these fantastic pieces of software are not the only way to deliver a great presentation. Other ways could include the use of a flip chart, a white board or just you standing in front of your audience.

Below, is a great example of how you could use a whiteboard (or a flip chart) to create an amazing presentation.

Using a little creativity and daring can really transform your presentations into something wonderful. You really do not need to use PowerPoint or Keynote all the time

You do not have to be artistic. I cannot draw at all, yet I always have a go drawing something on the board, my poor artwork creates some very funny moments and this helps to maintain my audiences’ interest.

So go on have a go – try something different.

Throughout this blog, and in most of the books written about presenting, there is a lot of advice about ‘following the rules’ of presenting. Recently, I have found myself asking “are there any rules for presenting?” The answer I have come up with is: no. There are no rules for presenting.

The purpose of doing a presentation is to communicate a message to a group of people. If we begin with this in mind, then how we communicate that message is irrelevant as long as we achieve the goal of communicating the message. Do we need to make a fifty slide PowerPoint presentation? No. Do we have to stand up in front of the audience wearing our best suit? No. Do we have to avoid using bullet points? No. None of these things matter – what really matters is that we communicate our message is the most effective way possible.

When we present to a small audience of six to ten people, do we really need to use PowerPoint of Keynote? Why not use a white board or a flip chart? Using a whiteboard or flip chart can give you a chance to get your audience involved, you can ask them to write ideas on the board, you can demonstrate your amazing artistic abilities (if you have them) and you can give your presentation a real live feeling.

Most presentations are done standing up, and while this is probably a good adea when you are presenting in front of hundreds of people, do you really need to stand up when you are presenting to say ten or twelve people? When you stand up to speak you create an air of formality, when you sit down you become ‘one of them’ – by becoming ‘one of them’ you become more approachable, more informal and relaxed.

If you take a look at Hollywood, the movies that are always remembered are the ones that did something different, the movies that were created in a different way, movies like Toy Story, The Blair Witch Project, Star Wars (the original ones) and Pulp Fiction – all these movies are memorable, not just because of the story lines, but because they were different from the ‘standard’ format.

Presentations are all about communication, sadly, we get taught in our universities and in our ‘top down’ managed companies that when we present we must use PowerPoint. This is simply not true, and the future for presenting is for us, the people, to create our own unique styles, to think carefully about how best to communicate our message and throw these old ideas about presenting away.

I had the great honour of attending the TEDx event in Seoul, last weekend. This was a shared event between TEDx Sookmyung and TEDx Myeongdong and the title was “Young Spirit , Visualize Your Idea”.

What was great to see was the seemingly complete move away from text based slides to a much more visual slide. Simple sentences and images say so much more than lines and lines of text, and that was demonstrated in abundance at this event.

The whole event was fantastically organised, with little intro videos before each speaker. This gave the event a feel of professionalism. Below, is a sample of one of the intro videos that was for guest speaker Bill Dresselhaus

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One of the great things about TED is the wonderful resources available on the main TED website. Here you can watch, completely free, some of the world’s best presenters talking passionately about what they truly believe in.
With the creation of the TEDx groups, you too can enjoy a TED event in your very own home town. So check out the TED website for a full list of TEDx cities and go along and watch some amazing presentations – you will not be disappointed.

One of the many questions I am asked is where to get inspiration for your slide designs. And the answer I always give is “look around you”

We are surrounded by billboards. posters and designs. Cities are awash with colour and ideas and inspiration are all around us. We can use these amazing surroundings for ideas for colour, design styles and so much more.

Below are a few examples I have captured on my travels around Seoul in the last few months:

From these examples, I have found simplicity, colour and text design style ideas. I often use these ideas in my own presentation files.

If it is possible, get in the habit of carrying a camera around with you, or if your mobile phone has a camera use that. You never know when a poster might be the missing link for a presentation you are about to do.

Most presentations that I attend or see online begin with nothing spectacular. They usually begin with a “Good morning. Thank you for coming today”. And while this is an OK beginning, that is exactly what it is. It is an “OK” beginning.

There is no inspiration, there is no excitement, and lets be honest the media have not been hyping your presentation for the previous 4 months. Steve Jobs may be able to get the audience excited with a “good morning. Thank you for coming today” beginning, the chances of you being able to do so are pretty slim.

I would not suggest you come running down the centre isle of the room like a TV Presenter or a pop star, but there are a few little things that you can do to help get your presentation off to a great start that wins your audience over and gets the atmosphere moving into a positive direction.

The first method I first saw Garr Reynolds do when he presented at Google Authors, it is simple, but very effective. Below is a sample of how he used animation to say “thank you”

In this slide you see a simple, small “thank you”. When Garr Reynolds shows this slide he says “I just want to say thank you, but not just a small thank you, a really big thank you”

As he says “… a really big thank you” the slide changes from the above slide to the slide below.

This is a nice simple way to get your audience smiling, if not laughing, and really does help to get your audience into a positive frame of mind.

Another way to begin your presentation is to begin with an amazing statistic. For example:

This is a slide that Steve Jobs used in his January 2010 presentation to introduce the iPad. That is an awesome statistic and one that had the audience clapping. Again, the objective of such an opening is to create a positive atmosphere and both the methods I have shown here certainly help to achieve that goal.

One of my favourite opening at the moment is to use video to introduce myself – I talked about the use of HD video as a background to your welcome slide in a previous post, and I have recently been using it to introduce myself when I open a presentation. (you can view that post here)

Another interesting way to make your opening a little more interesting is to use images from your own life (I admit this is another idea from Garr Reynolds) I used this style when I opened my presentation at TED MeongDong, Korea. Below is my slide deck from that presentation.

So when you open your next presentation, think about how you can utilise some creativity to make your opening a little more interesting. It not only makes you look more interesting, it also makes the whole event of your presentation more interesting.